Its not too surprising seeing a bunch of SEGA Xbox Live Arcade games making it to the best selling games this week on Xbox Live. Mostly because they had that awesome Thanksgiving sale. So what games made the list? Hit the jump and find out.
It’s a decade since Vitua Tennis first graced the Dreamcast, it seems to me like it was only yesterday I was around my best friends house sitting in their mothers living room playing doubles on Virtua Tennis with his brother. Ah- those were the days!
A decade on and now we’re sitting in our living rooms still playing VT when the mood takes us! I think it says a lot when a person like me, who despises sport of all kind, can still get hours of fun out of a sports game and I’ve wasted many, many hours.
I’m pretty impressed that Sega put together a 40 minute documentary on the history of Virtua Tennis. This is how you celebrate one of your classic series, take note Nintendo!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPF124mm-VA
Like what you heard? Then go buy it on iTunes. You should go buy it anyways, since it’s only 99 cents, and your purchase goes to help Japan’s relief efforts from the Earthquake / Hurricane. Hell, if I can afford it, so can you! Song of Hope is available in both Europe and the US on iTunes.
This isn’t your typical Crush 40 cheesy buttrock song, it actually sounds more like traditional rock, so I think more people will like it =)
Well, I was told that the money made off this song goes to Japan charities by someone, but now I’m not sure, I can’t find solid info anywhere about it. I don’t want to give you guys false info. If anyone could let us know in the comments section that would be great!
Today, Sega of Japan announced that the Sonic 20th Anniversary Soundtrack would be available on iTunes in Japan, Europe and The United States. The soundtracks include Sonic CD, Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 and Sonic Heroes. Also available are two Crush 40 albums including a “Best of” and Jun Senoue’s “The Works”. The albums are only $9.99 American so download now!
Seems that the Sonic CD release for XBLA is getting near, the achievements already made their way online. I assume that the Playstation 3 trophies will be exactly the same. Hit the jump to see the achievement list.
SEGA has released a new trailer for the upcoming port of Yakuza: Dead Souls. This new trailer shows the players the playable characters and what they like. No voicing, just background music. I don’t know what kinds of budgets are used for trailers, but I can tell you this one is very low budget.
We already know most of the Yakuza: Dead Souls information, so I’m not really caring about the trailers. What I am looking forward to know is the western changes that were talked about.
2011 has been a huge year for Sonic in a number of areas: we’ve seen the return of the Genesis-style gameplay, Archie’s Sonic series gave us a great adaptation of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 and the toy company Jazwares has released a number of action figures celebrating Sonic’s 20th anniversary. While I haven’t been posting about the many figures here at SEGAbits, over at SEGA Network affiliate SEGA Memories I’ve been regularly sharing the Jazwares toys. As of this week I’ve collected the full line of 20th anniversary figures, at least until Jazwares releases more which they have hinted at doing. What follows is a handy roundup of all my Jazwares figure posts from the past year, where I review each figure and share photos. Enjoy!
In February 2007, Sonic the Hedgehog was still fresh in the memories of Sonic fans. Yet they already had a new game to play in the form of the Wii exclusive Sonic and the Secret Rings. Secret Rings was a radically different kind of Sonic game, featuring on-rails play and a heavy emphasis on motion controls. Secret Rings had been championed the previous year by journalists as a Sonic game that was actually good, that took a radically different approach to the formula to solve the franchise’s problems. What gamers actually got was a mixed bag of great and poor design decisions that was still a huge step up from Sonic 06, and would start Sonic on his slow, winding road to recovery.
SEGA has teamed up with Hakuhodo DY Holdings to launch a new project named ‘Stories’. The point of the project is to take Japanese content and team up with Hollywood writers, producers and directors to make TV or film programming.
The Japanese intellectual properties being looked at include games, books, anime, manga comics, toys, films and TV. The Stories producers will have access to the parent companies’ intellectual properties. So that means we might be able to see a Shinobi movie that is more brutal than Ninja Assassin. I wish .
They are already hard at work, trying to get rights to a title from Japanese Sci-fi author Yasutaka Tsutsui, who is known for Paprika and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. They are also looking into getting the rights for an (as of right now) unknown Japanese show.
For those of you that want to relive the memories of the Game Boy Advance Sonic game, properly titled Sonic Advance, now you can. SEGA Japan have brought the game to the Japanese Android Market.
The game will cost you 415 yen (about $5). No idea if the game will be brought over West or other platforms. Here is hoping.
Above is the new trailer for the expansion pack for Total War: Shogun 2. This expansion is called “Fall of the Samurai”. The new expansion is a standalone, meaning you don’t need the original game to play it. The game shows the conflict between the Imperial throne and the last Shogunate, taking place 400 years after the events of the original title. The game will also feature railway networks, ironclad warships and improved siege battle mechanics.
The expansion also has a major overhaul in the multiplayer component of the game, now being called multiplayer 2.0. Included is over 40 new retainers, over 30 new armor pieces and a brand new skill tree for 19th century avatar. Should be a solid release for Total War addicts out there.
SEGA has decided to show some new things you will be able to do in Hatsune Miku and Future Friends: Project Mirai. In the old Project Diva titles, you could select a different vocaloid outside of Miku that would have them dancing while you played. In Project Mirai, if you select a new vocaloid the vocals in the songs change as well.
What sucks? Its not all the songs that have this feature, its selected tracks. Which makes sense. Also outfits are now called costumes and not modules like the older games. Also six songs have been confirmed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REFfrd-yaks
Were you upset that you weren’t able to play as Super Sonic during Perfect Chaos? Well, worry no more! A passionate Sonic fan has modded the PC version with a model swap on perfect chaos.
It’s not perfect, but it’s still pretty awesome to see. There is no download as of yet, but you know there will be one eventually, whether it is through this guy or someone else.
I’m hoping one day someone can mod the PC version to play more like the Sonic Adventure Perfect Chaos battle. I feel like the Generations version of Perfect Chaos is missing that sense of epic speed and scale.
When the first Mario and Sonic title hit in 2007, it was a major deal. Two video game rivals competing in a shared title! Unfortunately, once the novelty of seeing Nintendo and SEGA’s mascots together wore off, what players were left with was a so-so mini-game compilation with the best moments being the Dream Events and remixed music tracks from both series. In 2009 the series returned with Mario and Sonic competing in the Winter Olympics, and while it wasn’t a huge improvement over the first game, it was a better title thanks to improved controls, more characters and more events. Now the Mario and Sonic universes go head to head in a third Olympics, is this time just more of the same or is the third try a charm? Read on to find out!
Welcome to the new theme for SEGAbits. I hope you guys all like the changes we made to the blog. Instead of having quotes in the banner, we now have changing pictures. Refresh the page to try that out.
We are always looking into improving the site, so if you have any comments or questions make sure you contact us. You can comment as well and let us know what you think.
Enjoy!
Shadi Edit: We are also working on a mobile version for those of you with smartphones, I’ll be making a post about that once it’s up. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you smartphone users.